| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it
away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of
the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would
not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling
at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never
heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound
intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming
solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my
ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only
to sounds that are more or less distant from me.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: begin to describe the way that monstrous craft begun to crash
along. And such another powwow - thousands of bo's'n's whistles
screaming at once, and a crew like the populations of a hundred
thousand worlds like ours all swearing at once. Well, I never
heard the like of it before.
We roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our level
best, because I'd never struck a comet before that could lay over
me, and so I was bound to beat this one or break something. I
judged I had some reputation in space, and I calculated to keep it.
I noticed I wasn't gaining as fast, now, as I was before, but still
I was gaining. There was a power of excitement on board the comet.
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